• Proceedings of the Korean Society For Composite Materials Conference
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• 2003.04a
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• pp.184-187
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• 2003

Complete prediction of second order permeability tensor for three dimensional circular braided preform is critical to understand the resin transfer molding process of composites. The permeability can be predicted by considering resin flow through the multi-axial fiber structure. In this study, permeability tensor for a 3-D circular braided preform is calculated by solving a boundary problem of a periodic unit cell. Flow field through the unit cell is obtained by using a 3-D finite volume method (FVM) and Darcy's law is utilized to obtain permeability tensor. Flow analysis for two cases that a fiber tow is regarded as impermeable solid and permeable porous medium is carried out respectively. It is found that the flow within the intra-tow region of the braided preform is negligible if inter-tow porosity is relatively high but the flow through the tow must be considered when the porosity is low. To avoid checkerboard pressure field and improve the efficiency of numerical computation, a new interpolation function for velocity variation is proposed on the basis of analytic solutions. Permeability of the braided preform is measured through a radial flow experiment and compared with the permeability predicted numerically.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society For Composite Materials Conference
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• 2003.10a
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• pp.83-86
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• 2003

Complete prediction of second order permeability tensor for three dimensional preform such as plain woven fabric and braided preform is critical to understand the resin transfer molding process of composites. The permeability can be obtained by various methods such as analytic, numerical, and experimental methods. For several decades, the permeability has studied numerically to avoid practical difficulty of many experiments. However, the predicted permeabilities are a bit wrong compared with experimentally measured data. In this study, numerical calculation of permeability was conducted for two kinds of preforms i.e., plain woven fabric and circular braided preform. In order to consider intra-tow flow in the unit cell of preform the proposed flow coupled model was used for plain woven fabric and the Brinkman equation was solved in the case of the braided preform.

• Korea-Australia Rheology Journal
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.17-25
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• 2007

In liquid composite molding (LCM), composites are produced by impregnation of a dry preform with liquid resin. The resin flow through the preform is usually described by Darcy's law and the permeability tensor must be obtained for filling analysis. While the resin flow in the thickness direction can be neglected for thin parts, the resin flow in the transverse direction is important for thicker parts. However, the transverse permeability of the preform has not been investigated frequently. In this study, the transverse permeability was measured experimentally for five different fiber preforms. In order to verify the experimental results, the measured transverse permeability was compared with numerical results. Five different fiber mats were used in this study: glass fiber woven fabric, aramid fiber woven fabric, glass fiber random mat, glass fiber braided preform, and glass/aramid hybrid braided preform. The anisotropic braided preforms were manufactured by using a three dimensional braiding machine. The pressure was measured at the inlet and outlet positions with pressure transducers.

• Fibers and Polymers
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• v.4 no.3
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• pp.135-144
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• 2003

Permeability of the preform is one of key factors in design of RTM (Resin Transfer Molding) mold, determination of processing conditions, and modeling of flow in the mold. According to previous studies, permeability measured in the unsaturated fiber mats are higher than that in the saturated fiber mats by about 20% because of the capillary pressure. In this study, permeabilities of several fiber preforms are measured for both saturated and unsaturated flows. A saturated experiment of radial flow has been adopted to measure the permeability of anisotropic fiber preforms with high fiber content, i.e., circular braided preforms. In this method, four pressure transducers are used to measure the pressure distribution. Permeabilities in different directions are determined and the experimental results show a good agreement with the theory. Since permeability is affected by the capillary effect, permeability should be measured in the unsaturated condition for the textile composites to be manufactured under lower pressure as in the Vacuum Assisted Resin Transfer Molding (VARTM).

• Proceedings of the Korean Society For Composite Materials Conference
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• 2003.10a
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• pp.87-90
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• 2003

In Resin transfer molding (RTM), composite parts are produced by impregnation of a dry reinforcement with liquid matrix resin. Permeability is a key issue in this process. For thin parts, the resin flow in the thickness direction can be neglected. Therefore thin parts are considered as two-dimensional composites. However the resin flow through the thickness is important to thicker parts and we have to consider out-of-plane permeability. This work discusses a method to measure out-of-plane permeability. The flow rate and pressure drop across the porous media were measured. Also one dimensional form of Darcy's law is applied to calculate the out-of-plane permeability of various preforms. The flow is injected uniformly into layers of the preform. And a circular fiber mat with 6cm diameter was cut and flattened from cylindrical mandrel.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society For Composite Materials Conference
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• 2005.04a
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• pp.137-140
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• 2005

Resin transfer molding (RTM) is one of the most popular processes for producing fiber reinforced polymer composites. In the manufacture of complex thick composite structures, analysis on flow front advancement on the resin impregnating the multi-layered fiber preform is helpful for the optimization of the process. In this study, three-dimensional mold filling simulation of RTM is carried out by using CVFEM (Control Volume Finite Element Method). On the assumption of isothermal flow of Newtonian fluid, Darcy’s law and continuity equation are used as governing equations. Different permeability tensors employed in each layer are obtained by experiments. Numerically predicted flow front is compared with experimental one in order to validate the numerical results. Flow simulations are conducted in the two mold geometries, rectangular plate and hollow cylinder. Permeability tensor of each layer preform in Cartesian coordinate system is transformed to cylinder coordinates system so that the flow within the multi-layered preforms of the hollow cylinder can be calculated exactly. Our emphasis is on the three dimensional flow analysis for circular three-dimensional braided preform, which shows outstanding mechanical properties such as high impact strength and toughness compared with other conventional two-dimensional laminar-structured preforms.